“When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized.”

Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist and philosopher of the 20th century. She is best known for her novels *The Fountainhead* and *Atlas Shrugged*, which explore themes of individualism, capitalism, and rational egoism. Her ideas significantly influenced libertarian and objectivist thought.